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Carl Jung, part 8: Religion and the search for meaning from the Guardian UK by Mark Vernon.

In 1959, two years before his death, Jung was interviewed for the BBC television programme Face to Face. The presenter, John Freeman, asked the elderly sage if he now believed in God. “Now?” Jung replied, paused and smiled. “Difficult to answer. I know. I don’t need to believe, I know.”

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Voicelessness is when we have been deprived of our right to express ourselves by controlling and oftentimes, narcissistic parents. This pattern behavior carries over into adulthood through relationships with persons like our parents: our boss, our mate, co-workers, or even people we think are friends. We are trained by the narcissistic parent to be subservient. This sets us up to be attracted to people who are like our archetypical parent – controllers and other people who suffer from unhealthy narcissism. By identifying our own pattern of behavior we can break the cycle. Part of it starts with establishing good boundaries and speaking up for ourselves. Find out more in my book, It Has A Name! available through Amazon Kindle and Amazon Create Space (print version).

Many people spend a lifetime aggressively trying to protect an injured or vulnerable “self.” Traditionally, psychologists have termed such people “narcissists,” but this is a misnomer. To the outside world it appears that these people love themselves. Yet, at their core they don’t love themselves–in fact their self barely exists, and what part does exist is deemed worthless. All energy is devoted to inflating the self, like a persistent child trying to blow up a balloon with a hole.

Product Description
One of the most original psychoanalysts after Freud, Karen Horney pioneered such now familiar concepts as alienation, self-realization, and the idealized image, and she brought to psychoanalysis a new understanding of the importance of culture and environment.

About the Author
Karen Horney (1885-1952) was one of the most influential psychoanalysts of the twentieth century. Her books include Neurosis and Human Growth, The Neurotic Personality of Our Time, New Ways in Psychoanalysis, Our Inner Conflicts, Self-Analysis, Feminine Psychology, Final Lectures, and, as editor, Are You Considering Psychoanalysis?

I have written in my book, It Has A Name! and on this blog recently about Logic versus Rationality. Many unhealthy narcissists are very logical thinkers, but not rational in their behavior. In reviewing recent information on accused murderer, Jared Loughner, I read a piece this morning in the UK Mail Online that covered his suspected YouTube posts. The video was laid out in a fashion that used a primitive logical argument structure to express his world viewpoint. In doing so, this self-reinforcing expression gave him psychological license to act upon his argument, essentially giving himself permission to act in a way that was irrational. The self-referencing as ‘terrorist’, implies the correlating and consequential actions of a terrorist. The trigger event is being discussed widely by various reporters, but it would seem he had targeted the congresswoman as far back as 2007. And of course with all murderers all they need is motive, means, and opportunity. He had the motive as far back as 2007. He bought the murder weapon this last November. It was then a matter of opportunity. Saturday’s event was all it took to complete the plan.

Here is the transcript of the online video:

If you call me a terrorist then the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem.

‘You call me a terrorist.

‘Thus, the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem.’

‘The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar,’ the person wrote in one of the videos, which contain music and white text on a black background.

‘No! I won’t pay debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver. No, I won’t trust in God.’

The videos, which are set to music, mostly consist of text flashing up on screen. Some contain diagrams.

Loughner appears to be attempting to use the basic rules of logic to frame his bizarre, paranoid philosophy.

I read LA Times columnist Megham Duam’s OP-ED piece this morning, “Narcissist – give it a rest”, and was struck by how general her comments were and how defensive. Let’s take a look at what she says and then actually explain narcissism.

Ms. Daum expresses her annoyance that ” a whole lot of people are accusing a whole lot of other people of being narcissists.” However, she never explains narcissistic behavior, NPD (full blown narcissistic personality disorder), socially reinforced narcissism, collective cultural narcissism, or malignant narcissism (typically found in sociopaths) – so there is no clear cut point of reference. In an op-ed where a person is making a point, it helps one’s position to state the referencing factors to support their opinion. Instead, she simply goes on and on venting her annoyance at this trend. She comments, ” any behavior you don’t like can be dismissed as abrasively, idiotically, dangerously self-centered.” She goes on to then state, “The term has been misused so flagrantly that it’s now all but meaningless.” She ends her article by saying, “After all, we’re not a nation of narcissists. We’re a nation of jerks. Which happens to be easier to spell.”

I will make a little bit of a leap here. It’s possible Ms Daum’s annoyance comes after psychoanalyst, Bethany Marshall appearing this week on the Joy Behar Show stated that Brett Farve, a well known, admired NFL quarterback, may be a narcissist. She said there is such a thing as socially reinforced narcissism and this propels people to behave in narcissistic ways. In the NFL such an environment would not be hard to imagine where football players are adulated, receive high quality focused attention, arrogance and swagger is admired and encouraged, and many players act as if they are special and above others. Ms. Marshall did briefly explain the nature of narcissism. With Farve’s recent problems of being sued by two former NFL female employees for sexual harassment, Ms Marshall stated she thought Farve was craving attention by soliciting a three-way sexual tryst with the women. When they refused they found themselves unemployed shortly thereafter. A sexual harassment lawsuit has been filed against Farve.

To Ms. Daum’s comment about ‘ANY behavior being called self-centered’, i.e. narcissistic, it is quite the opposite. Narcissism is something very specific with specific traits and accompanying behavior. I explain in my book that unhealthy narcissists (a person with a fragmented, disordered personality who has specific set of traits and is known by a persistent pattern of behavior), are driven by two main things: (i) high quality focused attention; (ii) the need to be dominant, or to dominate. Many narcissists show up in professions where they can have both. Typical professions would be acting, attorneys, doctors, politics, psychologists, ministry, and celebrity-oriented professions, like professional sports. The classic narcissist is highly competitive as they strive to be dominant (this makes them feel secure), and place themselves in situation to receive attention (this helps support the grandiose-false self). In all actuality, narcissists are not so much self-centered as they are focused on managing their self-image, one that is a projection of their grandiose false-self. Much of their behavior is unconsciously driven.

The term ‘narcissism’ unfortunately is thrown around loosely and used in a perjorative way, but I would say, it may be warranted to some degree as we do live in a society where people like Farve are idolized; we have a show called American Idol; the long running show Survivor basically shows that it is ok to backstab your teammates to get what you want (the prize money); celebrities like Lindsey Lohan, Michael Jackson, and Brittany Spears are showing up on the nightly news regularly because of their narcissistic behavior; politics is rife with arrogance, back stabbing, and rule-breaking; in the documentary, Inside Job, a psychologist said the Wall Street culture was very narcissistic and the gross entitlement behavior was instrumental in the collapse of the markets. Where do you want me stop?

There are many aspects of common American life where socially reinforced narcissism exists. These behaviors are not happening in a void. They are socially reinforced by the people who admire these narcissists, who see their arrogance and swagger mistakenly as confident and self-assuredness – which is a very common misperception of narcissists. The narcissist insistence on having their way is also seen as a ‘knowing’ trait. People are attracted to confident, knowing, strong personalities. Many narcissists are charming, but their charm is a control tactic, used to bring people into their orbit. This is exactly how many people get involved with narcissists. Then down the line the narcissist will cease being charming and start being manipulative, aggressive, oppressive, and abusive. They become accusatory using sarcasm, put downs, slights, insults, and insinuation.

As to Ms. Daum’s last comment…. we’re a nation of jerks, this I find somewhat disturbing. To categorize all people as jerks is overstating anyone’s position. She also says earlier in a vein of sarcasm, I am afterall, a you-know-what. Why would anyone even humorously reference themselves as a narcissist? My own analysis here is not to psychoanalyze Ms. Daum though, but to clarify narcissism for what it is and how the behavior of narcissists destroys families and ruins lives — and particularly the life of the narcissist.

To peel away the layers of what makes narcissists who they are would take a whole book to explain. I did just that when I came to realize both my parents exhibited narcissistic behavior. I spent one year of intense research studying everyday and another two years to write and publish my book. I am working on a second book about collective cultural narcissism to be published later this year.

Want to know more about narcissism? You can buy my book, It Has a Name! and you can also click the Narcissism category for related posts.

Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie.

Hypocrisy is not simply failing to practice those virtues that one preaches. Samuel Johnson made this point when he wrote about the misuse of the charge of “hypocrisy” in Rambler No. 14:

Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself.

As I stated in my book on unhealthy narcissists,: Do not believe what they say, believe what they do. Unhealthy narcissists will say whatever is necessary to gain what they want, and what they want is always self-serving. They behave in two identifiable ways: (i) they behave in ways to garner high quality attention; (ii) they are driven by a need to be dominant.

They will lie, tell half-lies, cajole, charm, exploit, manipulate, use overt or covert control tactics to achieve their aims, and otherwise deceive others (see my post on the Art of Deception). They are controllers, arrogant in their stance, oftentimes attaching themselves to a noble cause to embellish their grandiose false-self, are performers by nature, insistent on their way, unapologetic for their bad behavior, and will act in contrary ways as a means to keep others off balance. Unhealthy narcissism is not one thing, it is a group of personality traits and is evident in a persistent pattern of behavior.

Find out more in my book, It Has A Name! available through Amazon, Kindle, Sony Smashwords, and hard copies through Create Space through links on this web site.

“Bullying by the boss is common but hard to fix”. Not true. The fix, is to stand up for yourself, and/or get another job — even in a tough job market like we are experiencing now, your self-esteem, self-respect, and self-worth are more important. You must not subordinate yourself to bullies. My book, It Has A Name!, begins and ends on the subject of bullying. Many bullies are unhealthy narcissists. They will not change, apologize, or own up to their behavior. The advice of most experts and what I say in my book is, Get away and stay away because you do not know the level of their dysfunction or the depth of their narcissism. Move on. Space and distance is your ally.

USA Today reports: Bullying by the boss is common but hard to fix

One in three adults has experienced workplace bullying, according to surveys conducted earlier this year by research firm Zogby International for the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI). Nearly three-fourths of bullying is from the top down, according to a 2007 study.

Some tyrannical managers scream and send out scathing e-mails. But often, an oppressor uses a more subtle — and easily covered — collection of behaviors. These actions could include purposely leaving a worker out of communications so they can’t do their job well, mocking someone during meetings and spreading malicious gossip about their target, says Catherine Mattice, a workplace consultant who specializes in this issue.

The acts may seem trivial, but as they build up over time, the ramifications can be monumental.

Bullied workers often feel anxious and depressed, can’t sleep and are at increased risk for ailments such as hypertension. Some employees feel so overwhelmed, they just can’t see a way out. “Sometimes, unfortunately, suicide is the result,” Mattice says.

Who gets picked on by whom

Workplace bullying can take many forms. While it’s often a boss targeting employees, workers have picked on peers — and even their supervisors.

Slightly more than 60% of bullies are men, and 58% of targets are women, according to WBI. When a woman is the aggressor, she often picks on her own gender: Women target other women in 80% of cases. Men are more apt to target men.

About Path to Well-Being

This blog wishes to encourage others to take the path to well-being through learning more about aesthetics, art, culture, economics, history, literature, philosophy, politics, psychology, the environment, and healthy living.
"…Well-being is the ability to be creative, to be aware, and to respond; to be independent and fully active, and by this very fact to be one with the world."
- Erich Fromm

IT HAS A NAME! — BUY THE PRINT VERSION HERE

My book, It Has A Name! is available in softcover through Amazon and Create Space: https://www.createspace.com/3450668